


all roads lead to chaos

by spiritscript



Series: balancing acts [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - College/University, Car Accidents, Chaos, Family Feels, M/M, Minor Car Accident, Miya Atsumu is a nice person, Road Trips, disaster cousins, does this count as a road trip? probably not but imma tag it anyway, family bickering, so minor Sakusa almost sleeps through it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28503069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritscript/pseuds/spiritscript
Summary: “Yeah, Kiyo-kun,” Motoya sings, causing Kiyoomi to bristle like a cat, or a snake about to strike,“I didn’t threaten murder.”Carefully, Kiyoomi picks up a small sliver of pork carefully, he bends back his right wrist precisely, and then, just as carefully, simply flicks it. And it lands. Perfectly. It lands right in the centre of Motoya’s chest, staining the stupid, obnoxiously bright, yellow t-shirt he’s wearing, and then the meat peels and teeters and falls into his lap.As it does, voices around them begin to erupt. Again.Family is a blessing and a curse, Motoya is a good driver as shown by his abilities to do flawless donuts even if he drives into a lamp post, ice-cream solves problems
Relationships: Komori Motoya & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: balancing acts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041702
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	all roads lead to chaos

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning  
>  there is a very very minor car accident as tagged where no one is harmed but the car and Motoya's pride**
> 
> This is part of my college au series and does reference some of that, but can be read alone if you just want some cousinly bickering and you shouldn't be too lost (if you want to read the sakuatsu of it all, the first work is enough for that!)
> 
> Also the SakuAtsu in this _is_ rather minimal--I mainly wanted some disaster cousinnnss
> 
>  **Implied Ship**  
>  YakuKomo (MoriMori)

Despite what most people seem to believe, Sakusa Kiyoomi really likes his family. He does. Add in his cousins, the Komori’s, though, and they become insufferable. Well, no, just add Motoya and they become insufferable. Motoya is insufferable. Motoya and his round, irrritating, leech shaped eyebrows and stupid hair and large, grating laugh and, most importantly, his penchant for not only getting under Kiyoomi’s skin, but tearing it off in one then frying it to a crisp and serving it to his and Kiyoomi’s family over what is supposed to be a ‘nice’ family dinner, is _insufferable._

“So,” insufferable Motoya beams ‘innocently’ over his glass of orange juice because he’s the type of person to drink orange juice at dinner—it takes a certain type of person and Motoya is one of them— “Kiyo-kun has a boyfriend,” 

That’s when it begins.

“Oh my God—”

“—Kiyooo—”

“—should be studying—”

“—why didn’t you say anything—”

Kiyoomi scowls and attempts to ignore him and not rise to the bait that will lead to his skin crisping in a pan, but when his sister reaches to pinch his cheek, he finds himself forced to intervene.

“I do not have a boyfriend, nor anything close to one— fuck off,” he interrupts himself to swat away his sister’s hand again.

“Language, Kiyoomi,” his father warns.

“Kiyo’s just shy,” Motoya chirps, fucking _chirps_ , from across the table, falsely, sickly sweet eyes boring into Kiyoomi and giving him a migrane, “he really—”

“—I do not—”

“—does. He works with us. They flirt all the time and his name is Miy—”

“I will end you,” Kiyoomi cuts him off then lowers his voice to say slowly, ensuring Motoya across the table hears and sees everything as it’s said, “if you dare say that name.”

There’s a tired collective sigh because no, this is not an uncommon happening. 

“That’s not very nice Kiyo-kun,” Motoya pouts pointedly.

“I don’t care.”

“Kiyoomi,” his mother warns, “don’t be rude.”

“Motoya’s the filthy, rotten liar, why am _I_ getting scolded.”

“Motoya didn’t threaten murder.”

“I’ll threaten more than murder,” Kiyoomi mumbles, stabbing his chopsticks into his food.

“Yeah, Kiyo-kun,” Motoya sings, causing Kiyoomi to bristle like a cat, or a snake about to strike, _“I didn’t threaten murder.”_

Carefully, Kiyoomi picks up a small sliver of pork carefully, he bends back his right wrist precisely, and then, just as carefully, simply flicks it. And it lands. Perfectly. It lands right in the centre of Motoya’s chest, staining the stupid, obnoxiously bright, yellow t-shirt he’s wearing, and then the meat peels and teeters and falls into his lap. 

As it does, voices around them begin to erupt. Again.

“—Kiyo—”

“—Motoya—”

“—for fuck’s sake—”

“—what the—”

“—here we go again—”

And then there’s a noodle sliding down Kiyoomi’s face and a giggle from the other side of the table.

That’s it

“Kiyo no—”

A carrot just misses the side of Motoya’s head. Motoya jumps to his feet. Kiyoomi’s sister sighs and climbs under the table with her plate. Motoya is throwing a napkin. Kiyoomi reaches for his glass of water. Kiyoomi’s father says something about not being children anymore and his mother is saying his name. Motoya’s father is grinning. Kiyoomi throws the water and Motoya tries to dodge, but Kiyoomi had planned for that and it hits him square in the face. Around them there’s laughing and sighing and shouting, but still, Kiyoomi can hear Motoya perfectly.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says, stepping onto the seat of his chair.

“Try it, weasel face.”

Motoya jumps from the chair to the table and then at Kiyoomi, and almost misses. He latches onto Kiyoomi’s back and wraps as much of himself around Kiyoomi as possible, using all his weight to drag both of them to the ground.

“I said enough!” Kiyoomi’s father shouts and they both stop, Kiyoomi with one knee on the floor and Motoya climbing on his back. 

They turn slowly to see everyone standing and Kiyoomi’s father turning red. 

Maybe they went too far.

Kiyoomi catches sight of his sister under the table, who’s only shaking her head.

They probably went too far.

x

“Are you sure you can’t stay longer?” Kiyoomi’s mother asks, brushing at the non existent lint on his shoulder in the genkin of their small house.

“Are you sure you would want me to stay longer?” he half mumbles, remembering the scene from the night before. Kiyoomi’s not usually like that, prides himself on being put together and presenting himself well, but sometimes the sibling/cousin instinct kicks in and he forgets all laws of functionality. Which is fine when it’s aimed at siblings and cousins and not sixty-five year old philosophy lecturers like that one time he does not talk about.

“Of course, Kiyo, I feel like I never see you anymore,” she smiles, small and tight and Kiyoomi knows she feels bad, guilty. 

It’s not her fault, it’s his if anything. Summer vacation has just started and he’s only spent all of two days at home. While people often mistakenly assume he dislikes his family, even more believe he’s superfluously wealthy—he is not. 

As a child, his parents were rarely home, working long hours to provide a comfortable life for him and his siblings, so they could have the best chances in life. As a result, Kiyoomi was often alone. For a long time, he held resentment towards them especially when he’d go to Motoya’s, whose mother stayed at home, and saw him spending all that time with his mother laughing and joking and being loved, and it made him feel jealous. He wanted to be the one whose mother or father was always there, and he let them know it not so delicately—like a sledgehammer to fine china. Because children only understand how fragile their parents are long after the hammer has dropped—that everything said to them by those they’re supposed to love most, hurts far more than a cut, more like a cut dipped in lemon juice. Kiyoomi had cut his parents over and over again, and then with the same knife, carved a lemon and rubbed it on their wounds when what they really needed was anything but that. Over and over.

Then he overheard his brother and sister talking about money one day—at seven and eight years older than him, they had a much firmer grasp of the reality of their situation—and Kiyoomi began to realise the true value of money.

So he grew up. He forced himself to grow and mature in the space of a night, looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to his ceiling and feeling the tears roll down his face as he came to the conclusion that he had to grow up. So he constructed a plan; the only thing an eleven year old could do—he aimed for academic scholarships. Kiyoomi was always studious, always a hard worker, but he became determined to make things as easy for his parents as possible by working as hard as possible. And it worked. He was accepted into Itachiyama Private Academy on a scholarship alongside Motoya, who was never one to be outdone. This meant moving away. 

At the time he thought this would be good for his parents, some time to themselves, some peace after work, but it wasn’t until recently he suspected it may have been lonely for them, that getting to see their child at the end of a long, hard, work day, the reason they worked so hard, a reason for their struggle, might have provided a sense of pride and achievement. They’d never say any of that though—they only ever wanted the best for him and his siblings of course, and Itachiyama, in the centre of Tokyo nearly two hours away from his family home, was the best. 

Kiyoomi often wonders if they think they drove him away, but asking means getting an answer and he’s not sure he wants an answer.

Now, he works hard, sacrifices his academic breaks to work as much as possible to earn money to try and give them some sense of financial break because academic scholarships only go so far in university. 

Once again he wonders if maybe they think it’s an avoidance technique. 

It’s not. He just… doesn’t know what else to do or how to say these things… so he just doesn’t.

“I’m sorry mum, but the schedule's been done already. I’ll be home again as soon as I can.”

x

“Move your ass,” Motoya says, leaning against the driver’s door of his ugly little green car named Kim Cardashian (a name Kiyoomi refuses to acknowledge or use), wearing the pair of sunglasses he bought a week ago at 3 a.m., and then cried to Kiyoomi about because they were so expensive, but would not return because, ‘they look so swag Kiyo, they’re so _swag_ , I’ll look so _cool and trendy Kiyooo,_ ’ while sobbing. Motoya is an ugly crier. Finals do weird things to people.

Kiyoomi frowns at his cousin then stops in his tracks. Then he takes a step, stops again, takes another and Motoya groans long and gutturally.

“You are literally the worst,” he exclaims to the heavens, and looks back at Kiyoomi with a scrunched up scowl.

“I don’t,” step, “think I’m,” step, _“possibly,”_ step, “‘literally,’” step, “‘the worst.’” 

He’s reached the trunk of Motoya’s car and opens it, grimacing at the grime he can feel, and carefully places his backpack beside Motoya’s in amongst the small tool box and empty shopping bags. 

“There are serial killers Motoya, I’m not as bad as a serial killer.” Shutting it with a bang, he once again begins his process of step, pause, step, pause, while Motoya groans again, climbing into the car. 

Then the engine hums to life, and then he starts driving. The little shit starts driving, without Kiyoomi in it.

“Motoya!” Kiyoomi screams and jogs the few steps to where Motoya has stopped. When he reaches the door and moves to open it, Motoya drives forward again and Kiyoomi manages to land a kick on the already dented back bumper.

“Don’t kick Kim,” Motoya screams through the open window, but does stop long enough for Kiyoomi to open the door. “Not fun is it, huh cuz?”

“Screw you,” Kiyoomi says and looks around the car. When he spots what he’s looking for in the back seat, he reaches back and places it on his seat before giving one more glance around the car and settling in, pulling on the seatbelt, tugging it twice, then reaches for the antibacterial wipes and hand cream he has stored in the glove department. With all of this done, he finally sighs into his seat and lets his eyes close for a moment. 

Until the radio starts and something that he can only assume is supposed to resemble music starts screaming through the speakers loud and screeching. He opens his eyes with a sigh and turns to look at his cousin who’s clearly trying to suppress the smirk on his face as he weaves around a corner, humming along to the incoherence being sputtered through the car speakers. 

Kiyoomi decides to try and be the bigger person, Motoya—who had to come to accept he would forever be 12cm shorter than Kiyoomi a long time ago—does not. 

“I can't believe you have a car cushion, what are you, like ninety?” He says, turning the music down marginally since he wasn’t getting the reaction Kiyoomi was insistent on not giving him.

“You know for a fact I’m only twenty.” Kiyoomi retorts with all the knowledge that this is the right answer to get Motoya to sigh and click his tongue and do that little squished thing he does with his mouth when he’s annoyed.

“That is not what I meant,” Motoya says, sighing and clicking his tongue and doing that little squished thing he does with his mouth when he’s annoyed.

“Maybe it’s for cleanliness, don’t know what kind of squalor you live in.”

“We live together you idiot, and I fucking drove you here.”

“I don’t know where you’ve been the last two days.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“No, but I am unfortunately blood related.”

“It sounds so weird when you say it like that.”

 _“It sounds so weird when you say it like that,”_ Kiyoomi mimics.

“You’re such a child.”

“Oh? And you’re not? Jumping across a fucking table?”

 _“You attacked me first!”_ Motoya squeals, slamming a little hard on the breaks—which had nothing at all to do with the current conversation, because Kiyoomi unfortunately knows from a lot of experience that Motoya is a dramatic driver. 

Motoya drives like the devil is chasing him in an attempt to reclaim the throne Motoya stole from him the moment he was conceived.

Though while he is dramatic as hell in his driving, he’s also a very good driver. Kiyoomi has borne first hand witness to him pulling a sharp, knee jerk right hand turn, skidding horizontally and saving them from some entitled idiot in a red corvette who would have rammed straight into them had Motoya not pulled off the knee jerk side skid. He’s also seen his incredible drift control when doing donuts in an abandoned parking lot. Unfortunately, the witnessing of this last part had meant Kiyoomi also had to help Motoya pay for new tires to for his father’s car to replace the newly worn ones—this was before he’d managed to procure his own and only four hours after getting his license—even though Kiyoomi hadn’t _wanted_ to be there but the argument of being an accessory to a crime meaning accountability was made and so, he too was dragged into Motoya’s disaster pit again. As per usual.

They watch the cars pass, the tinny ‘music’ thudding through the speakers until Kiyoomi reaches out and flicks it off in one, the lights still haven’t changed.

“Thank god,” Motoya laughs, “I was worried I’d have to pretend to like it the whole way back.”

Kiyoomi scoffs and reaches out a hand, “maybe I should turn it back on again—”

Motoya slaps his hand and puts the car into gear as the light changes. 

Truthfully, Kiyoomi has no right to judge Motoya’s driving at all given he doesn’t understand how to drive himself. The thought of driving doesn’t appeal to him, and if he’s being absolutely brutally honest, kind of terrifies him. People have tried to argue, ‘when you’re in control it’s completely different’, but he has tried, and nearly ran himself off the road in an empty parking lot (yes the same parking lot as the one the donuts were done in). It makes his skin crawl and his throat close up and want to throw himself through the windshield before a collision can. And yes, he has tried going to lessons, not just stealing his uncle’s car and driving it around an abandoned parking lot, and he’s come to the conclusion he’s just not _meant_ to drive. He is so perfectly capable of everything else he sets his mind to, but this is the one thing that has defeated him. This, of course, Motoya will never let him live down.

“It was your fault,” Kiyoomi mutters eventually.

“Oh?” Motoya asks, cruising gently. Okay so Kiyoomi is probably biased, he is a good driver, but he’s seen Motoya on roller skates and try to grind using a scooter with no prior experience, so he’s probably just biased and any finger twitches while Motoya is driving are probably more a desire to wring his neck. 

He is a dramatic driver though.

“You mentioned _him,_ ” Kiyoomi can feel himself turning red and he hasn’t even said his name.

“Honest mistake,” Motoya chuckles and he receives a glare in return. “Okay fair, I probably shouldn’t have, but it was funny.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“Okay, it was funny for me, seeing you get all worked up like that. Dinner was boring.”

Kiyoomi blows out a long suffering breath, slowly and steadily, and chooses not to answer.

“Come on, you make it too easy, you get so worked up so easily, Kiyoomi. Especially when it’s about him.”

He’s not wrong is the worst part—Kiyoomi is easily flustered and even easier annoyed and even more so when it comes to one, Miya Atsumu. Like the first time he ever crossed his path—when Atsumu happened to crash straight into him, spilling Kiyoomi’s breakfast smoothie all over both of them. When Motoya had asked him about it that evening, all he could say was, “I think his legs account for most of his weight.”

When asked what this meant he stammered and blushed and said, "he has… very clearly strong legs"

“Please,” Motoya had said slowly while pinching the bridge of his nose, “tell me you didn't say anything stupid.”

“I didn’t say that if that’s what you mean. I— eh, I panicked and cursed at him and didn’t say anything else because he was on top of me and wearing some very tight trousers.”

“So you were an asshole?”

“I was an asshole.” Kiyoomi had said glumly and heaved a sigh. He’s admitted it before and he’ll admit it again, he’s bad with these things.

“What is it about Miya Atsumu that gets you worked up and what the fuck happened after Hirugami’s party?” Motoya asks now, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

“I’m not telling,” Kiyoomi says a little too quickly, aware of just how childish he comes across, especially when he crosses his arms. “What about you and Yaku?”

Motoya makes an amused sound. “There is no ‘me and Yaku’ because he barely even knows I exist and I’m just hopelessly crushing on him. Whereas something actually happened between you and Atsumu and he _doesn’t stop flirting with you.”_

“Yes he does.”

“So you agree? He flirts with you?”

“No I meant— Shut up,” Kiyoomi says, turning back on the radio and changing the station. He’s not going to stand for this.

x

At some point, Kiyoomi’s eyes had drifted closed and he’d entered that weird state of almost but not quite asleep—which he is suddenly thrown out of by the sound of metallic crunching and his body being thrown forward against the seatbelt, and then back against the seat.

It takes a moment for the haze to fully lift and for him to put together what exactly has happened, but the lamppost just outside the windshield and the crumpled hood of the car tells him it’s not good. When he turns to see Motoya sitting in shocked silence, his hands still on the steering wheel, the image agrees that it is not good.

“So…” Kiyoomi begins slowly, eyes wide, “you weren't lying when you said you were going to kill me.”

“You did tell me to try to,” Motoya says and offers what Kiyoomi assumes is supposed to be a laugh.

He takes a steadying breath and unbuckles his belt, and looks over at Motoya who’s staring back at him with an expression Kiyoomi knows is the exact same he had just a moment ago.

“You okay?” Kiyoomi asks.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Motoya replies and unbuckles his belt too. They both tentatively climb out of the car, checking for any aches or unsteadiness, then walk around to the front of the car.

“Shit,” Motoya breathes, “it’s fucked.” He begins walking towards the back of the car and looks out to the road.

“Fuck,” he says again, “it’s fine, it’s fine. We’re okay and that’s all that matters. It could have been a lot worse. It’s not even that bad.” It sounds to Kiyoomi like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything, but honestly he’s right—neither of them are hurt, it’s the shock more than anything that’s gotten to them. But Motoya is clearly shaken, so it’s Kiyoomi’s job to try and do something to make him feel better, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, not because he’s any good at it. 

He’s bad with these things, remember?

Kiyoomi looks back at the car and only now notices the sticker on the back window that reads ‘Bad Bitches on Board’. 

“I don’t think Kim Cardashian agrees with that sentiment,” he offers in his signature deadpan tone.

There’s a pause and then Motoya says in wonder, “you said it. You finally said it.”

“I figured you deserved some sort of a win.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh my god!” They both turn to the sound of a woman’s voice. They hadn’t noticed her pulling in, but she’s rushing towards them from her own car, looking far more panicked than they feel. “Are you two okay? Oh my god!”

Kiyoomi’s not sure if he’s a little in shock, or if it’s because she does seem to be genuinely worried for them, but when she places her hands on either side of his face, he can only blink in reply and then she’s doing the same to Motoya. 

“Are you boys okay?” She’s stopped touching them which is nice, and Kiyoomi finally begins to process her—she can’t be much younger than his own mother, and her soft face is furrowed into a look of such concern. It makes his heart twinge. 

“Yeah,” Motoya speaks up, “it wasn’t that bad, it looks worse than it is.”

“What happened?” She asks, pushing some of her frizzy hair from her face.

“Oh, eh,” Motoya stammers, “a cat ran out and I swerved.” 

“It’s okay sweetie,” she says placing a hand on his arm in a placating manner and her eyebrows pull together even more. “I’ll call for some assistance and you boys call someone to come pick you up okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she’s turning around and whipping out her phone.

“This happened because of a cat?” Kiyoomi asks, still looking at the woman's back.

“Yeah, I know you're not supposed to swerve to avoid an animal but I couldn’t kill a cat,” Motoya sighs, “a person no problem, but killing a cat? That’s where I draw the line.”

“I can’t believe this happened because of a cat.”

“Kiyo, I feel bad enough already please—”

“I always knew I preferred dogs.”

There’s a moment before Motoya laughs, and Kiyoomi feels a weight lift when he hears that stupid, too loud laugh. He watches some of the tension drain out of Motoya’s shoulders as he sighs.

“I’ll call mum, someone can come for us,” Kiyoomi says, pulling out his phone when Motoya interrupts him.

“No we’re only like twenty minutes from school, we don’t want them travelling so far.”

“So get a taxi?”

“No,” Motoya says, tapping on his screen and beginning to walk away absentmindedly, “I know someone who’s not gone home yet and has a car that can pick us up.” 

x

The woman offered to stay and wait with them until their friend and assistance arrived, but Motoya insisted it wasn’t necessary, and Kiyoomi agreed with him. She felt just a little much and he was a little worried she might try and give him a hug or something. He doesn’t like hugs, especially not from random strangers no matter how well intentioned they are, or how much they remind him of his mother.

The tow truck arrived within fifteen minutes of being called, and Kiyoomi let Motoya deal with all of the questions, pulling out his car cushion to sit on the sidewalk. The sidewalk that gave him a very good view of the old, black car that began to pull in and stutter to a stop beside Kim Cardasian. Unfortunately, it did not give him a good view of the driver until he stepped out of the black car in a tight, white shirt and sweatpants.

Suddenly, Kiyoomi regretted ever being nice to Motoya.

“Whoa,” Miya Atsumu calls when he steps out of the car and then whistles, walking around Kim Cardashian to get a good look at the damage, “nice.”

“I really don’t think nice is what you’re supposed to say about a vehicular accident Miya,” Kiyoomi can’t help himself from saying to the man’s back. He turns quickly and looks surprised before grinning large and wide.

“Omi-kun! Didn’t know you were here too!”

“Unfortunately,” he mumbles as Atsumu walks over to him and flops down beside him, then scoots away from him a little bit. Atsumu giving him personal space like this should not be making his palms sweat like that.

“Was it bad?” 

He looks over at Atsumu, whose eyes are oddly serious, his mouth pulled down into a slight frown and feels himself deflating, and shifts himself a little where he’s sitting.

“No, it looks worse than it was. Kim Cardashian got the worst of it.”

There’s a moment.

“Kim… Cardashian?” Atsumu asks, a look that seems to say _I have no clue what to do with what you just said_ , which is completely understandable.

Fuck. “Yeah, that’s… that’s the name of the car.”

There’s another moment.

“Uh huh, and Omi-kun, what’s with the pillow?”

“It’s a cushion.”

“What’s with the cushion then?”

“It’s a car cushion.”

There’s yet another moment.

“Is that… is that meant to be something I understand?”

“No.”

“Right.”

And yet again, there is a moment.

“There’s nothing to know,” Kiyoomi begins and feels Atsumu’s eyes on him, “I just like sitting on a cushion in the car. It also helps that Motoya hates it.”

Atsumu makes a humming, appreciative noise. “I get it, like how I always buy granulated sugar instead of castor sugar whenever ‘Samu asks me to pick some up and I just tell him it’s the same thing—it’s just sugar.”

“You’re brother’s a culinary student right?”

“Yep!”

“That’s cruel.”

“That’s the point.”

Kiyoomi finds himself laughing, because he understands the sentiment far too well, and Atsumu joins him, then rises to his feet and offers a hand to Kiyoomi.

“Come on,” he says, jerking his head back towards where the tow truck is pulling away, “looks like we’re ready to go. And I’m bringing you both to get checked out at the hospital—I’m not accepting arguments. Whiplash is more real than you may realise.”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes and accepts his hand. “Fine, but we’re stopping for ice cream after.”

Atsumu’s laugh is boisterous, always has been, there’s no other way to describe it—the way it can fill up a whole moment and is always so full in and of itself. It always has been. But this time, when his eyes squint closed and his chin tilts up and it spreads out all around him, it’s even more vibrant than ever before. His shoulders shake as he leans down and picks up Kiyoomi’s cushion for him and begins to walk away, still laughing, and it fills Kiyoomi up to a level he hadn’t known he contained, and then pours out and over and covers him completely. And once again, he finds himself completely struck by this stupid idiot in front of him now asking who wants to ride shotgun with him, and Kiyoomi knows he’s going to be playing terrible music and singing along obnoxiously and he is going to ensure they go to the hospital and he’s going to say something about Kim Cardashian.

But, of course, Kiyoomi isn’t good with these things. 

x

“Motoya,” Kiyoomi says, going to sit on the couch beside him, “he didn’t have a condom.”

The hospital visit had taken almost two hours, just for them to be told there didn’t seem to be anything wrong, but they were still instructed to take note of how they were feeling for the next few days just to be sure. Atsumu had stayed the entire time, sitting in the waiting room, flicking through magazines and reading out agony aunt columns and astrology forecasts dramatically. By the time it was over, Atsumu still had a grin on his face and insisted on stopping for ice-cream, even after Kiyoomi told him it was a joke and he didn’t have to. So they stopped for ice-cream and Kiyoomi’s palms felt sweaty and his tongue felt thick, but he knew for a fact it was not an allergic reaction because the only thing Kiyoomi is allergic to is penicillin. Then Atsumu dropped them home and insisted,

“If you need a lift at all, just let me know.”

And Kiyoomi had replied, “I’m perfectly capable of ordering a taxi. Think of it as paying money _not_ to hear you talk.”

He thought, not for the first time in their three years of acquaintanceship, that he’d taken it too far. 

But Atsumu had laughed, waved goodbye with a middle finger, and sent both him and Motoya a text reiterating the sentiment. 

“What?” Motoya asks now and Kiyoomi brings one leg up to his chest, folding in on himself.

“He didn’t have a condom,” he says carefully. “He came home with me, he got naked, I got almost naked, we made out, he didn’t have a condom.”

Motoya doesn’t respond, his mouth hanging open for far too long, and Kiyoomi begins to shift in his seat.

“What?” Motoya finally says, turning to face Kiyoomi properly.

“Do I really need to say it again?”

Motoya shakes his head. “Kiyo,” he says carefully as if navigating through a pit of snakes, “what happened then?”

“I panicked.”

“So you were an asshole?”

“I was an asshole.” Kiyoomi agrees and sinks into the couch.

“How much of an asshole?”

“I kicked him out, then he told me he got the job and I called him a fucking idiot because I was going to be his supervisor and we haven't mentioned it to each other since.”

“Kiyo—”

“I know,” Kiyoomi says, throwing a hand over his face, “I know Motoya but I panicked, and I don't… As soon as he said he didn’t have a condom it hit me what I was doing. I… I didn’t want it to start like that I didn't want that to define me to him because—”

“Because you like him and you’re awful with feelings,” Motoya finished, but not meanly, knowingly. 

Motoya knows Kiyoomi better than anyone else and he knows that Kiyoomi doesn’t always mean to be an asshole, he just struggles with emotions. He doesn’t want to ask the difficult questions because he doesn’t want the possible horrible answers. He does stupid things because he doesn’t know how else to handle these things. He doesn’t mean it, it’s just easier, or he thinks it’s easier because it’s better to think terrible thoughts than for them to become real. It’s easier to try and distance himself than get wrapped up and hurt more than he already does. He thinks it’s easier. 

Because he’s bad with these things.

“Because I like him and I’m awful with feelings.”

**Author's Note:**

> All credit goes to Hannah ([ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarins/pseuds/lunarins) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/hanoorins)) for coming up with the car name Kim Cardashian. It is inspired.
> 
> And thank you to K ([ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/d_fenestrate/pseuds/d_fenestrate) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/d_fenestrate)) for the beta!!
> 
> i am also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohmiyamy)!


End file.
